2

Rene Descartes
Discourse on Method

If Bacon stressed the empirical element in scientific inquiry, Rene Descartes

(1596-1650), a French mathematician and philosopher, established the ne-
cessity for a rigorous, rational analysis and explanation of natural phenom-
ena. A more profound and precise thinker than Bacon, Descartes was the
mathematical genius who worked out the new discipline of analytic geome-
try. Descartes' philosophical work ranged, with typical French clarity, over
the fields of metaphysics, ethics, and psychology, and he is generally consid-
ered the founder of modern philosophy. His emphasis on mathematical
methods of reasoning, on one hand, gave contemporary scientists a means of
guaranteeing the certainty of their knowledge of the physical universe. On
the other hand, his metaphysical thought was to establish a rational basis for
religious belief. In fact, he attributed his insights, scientific and metaphysical
alike, to divine revelations made to him in a series of dreams. But the Chris-
tian churches thought otherwise and condemned his work. What most in-
spired ecclesiastical displeasure was Descartes' dualism—his belief that mind
and matter are essentially different substances subject to different laws. It was
this philosophical dualism that enabled him to separate scientific inquiry from
religious thought and to treat the world of nature as a mechanical one,
operating strictly according to mathematical law.
The following selection from the Discourse on Method (1637), the
most important of Descartes' philosophical writings, provides a superb dem-
onstration of Cartesian dualism. Descartes began his inquiry into the phe-
nomena tangible to human existence with the deliberate rejection of all

Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, trans. Laurence J. Laufleur, copyright © 1950,

1956 by The Liberal Arts Press, a division of The Bobbs-Mcrrill Company, Inc., 1-2,
7, 10-14, 20-25, 41-42. Reprinted with permission.

15
 -

16 Ren6 Descartes

previous knowledge, opinions, and customs. In addition, before accepting re-

placements, he worked out four steps of inquiry considered to be the true
method; these were to be an unfailing safeguard against any and all errors
that might otherwise impede his discovery of truth. For Descartes, assurance
that he was not deceived in this process resided in his ability to doubt. And
he concluded that since he doubted, he must exist—or, even more
pointedly, that since he'was capable of thinking, he existed.
At a certain point in his work, Descartes must have realized that his
method was not an adequate tool for an inquiry into whether or not God ex-
ists. The strict application of the method in this specific instance might have
resulted in the denial of a divine existence. Since Descartes rejected atheism,
for reasons of upbringing as well as inclination, he saw himself compelled to
find a way in which to prove that God exists. Thus developed the following
line of thought: Descartes reasoned that it was impossible that he could have
received the notion of God from nothing; nor could he accept that he had de-
veloped this notion within himself. Much rather, his ability to think of some-
thing more perfect than himself reassured him that some more perfect being
existed. In addition, the feeling that he was dependent upon this being and
that he had received from it all he possessed added to his certainty about
God's existence. Having investigated this topic at length, Descartes con-
cluded that God's existence is at least as certain as any demonstration of
geometry.
The dualism in his philosophy caused Descartes to be attacked and de-
famed by scientists as well as by religious leaders. The former accused him of
having propped up religion, while the latter, Roman Catholics and Protes-
tants alike, charged him with having laid an ax to the very roots of Christian
religion. No wonder that Descartes, who above everything else cherished a
quiet existence, felt forced to spend a significant portion of his lifetime corres-
ponding with his detractors, trying to convince them that they had either
misread or misunderstood his works.

If this discourse seems too long to be read at one sitting, it may be

divided into six parts. In the first will be found various thoughts on
the sciences; in the second, the principal rules of the method the au-
thor has used; in the third, some moral rules derived from this
method; in the fourth, his proofs of the existence of God and of the
human soul which form the basis of his philosophy; in the fifth are
 Discourse on Method 17

treated some questions of physics, especially the explanation of the

heartbeat and of some other difficulties in medicine, as well as the
difference between the souls of men and animals; and in the last,
some prerequisites for further advances in the study of nature, as
well as the author's reasons for writing this work.

PART ONE

Some Thoughts on the Sciences

[Good sense is mankind's most equitably divided endowment^for

everyone thinks that he is so abundantly provided with it that even
those most difficult to please in other ways do not usually want more
than they have of this.[As^it is not likely that pveryonp k mict-dlrpp
.this evidence shows that the ability to judge correctly, and to distin-
guish the true trorh the false—which is really what is meant by good
sense or reason—is the same by nature in all men:l and that dif-
ferences of opinion are not due to differences in intelligence, but
merely to the fact that we use different approaches and consider dif-
ferent things. For it is not enough to have a good mind: one must
use it well. The greatest souls arc capable of the greatest vices as well
as of the greatest virtues; and those who walk slowly can, if they
follow the right path, go much farther than those who run rapidly in
the wrong direction. . . .
It is true that while I did nothing but observe the customs of other
men, I found nothing there to satisfy me, and I noted just about as
much difference of opinion as I had previously remarked among phi-
losophers. The greatest profit to me was, therefore, that I became
acquainted with customs generally approved and accepted by other
great peoples that would appear extravagant and ridiculous among
ourselves, and so I learned not to believe too firmly what I learned
only from example and custom.[Also 1 gradually freed myself fro_m
many errors which could obscure the light_pf "^^^^C^jj^JSCJ^l^^
capable_of cnrrpcX_reasoning./But after spending several years in thus
studying the book of nature and acquiring experience, I eventually
reached the decision to study my own self, and to employ all my
abilities to try to choose the right path. This produced much better
results in my case, I think, than would have been produced if I had
never left my books and my country.
18 Rene Descartes

PART TWO

The Principal Rules of the Method

I had discovered in college that one cannot imagine anything so

strange and unbelievable but that it has been upheld by some
philosopher; and in my travels I had found that those who held opin-
ions contrary to ours were neither barbarians nor savages, but that
many of them were at least as reasonable as ourselves. I had consid-
ered how the same man, with the same capacity for reason, be-
comes different as a result of being brought up among Frenchmen or
Germans than he would be if he had been brought up among
Chinese or cannibals; and how, in our fashions, the thing which
pleased us ten years ago and perhaps will please us again ten years in
the future, now seems extravagant and ridiculous; and I felt that in
all these ways we are much more greatly influenced by custom and
example than by any certain knowledge. Faced with this divergence
of opinion, I could not accept the testimony of the majority, for I
thought it worthless as a proof of anything somewhat difficult to
discover, since it is much more likely that a single man will have
discovered it than a whole people. Nor, on the other hand, could I
select anyone whose opinions seemed to me to be preferable to those
of others, and I was thus constrained to embark on the investigation
for myself.
Nevertheless, like a man who walks alone in the darkness, I re-
solved to go so slowly and circumspectly that if I did not get ahead
very rapidly I was at least safe from falling. Also, I did not want to
reject all the opinions which had slipped irrationally into my con-
sciousness since birth, until I had first spent enough time planning
how to accomplish the task which I was then undertaking, and seek-
ing the true method of obtaining knowledge of everything which my
mind was capable of understanding.
Among the branches of philosophy, I had, when younger, studied
logic, and among those of mathematics, geometrical analysis and
algebra; three arts or sciences which should be able to contribute
something to my design. But in examining them I noticed that as far
as logic was concerned its syllogisms 1 and most of its other methods

*Set forms of reasoning consisting of a major premise and a minor premise and a nec-
essary conclusion drawn from the two.
 Discourse on Method 19

serve rather to explain to another what one already knows, or ...

to speak without judgment of what one does not know, than to learn
new things. Although it does contain many true and good precepts,
they are interspersed among so many others that are harmful or su-
perfluous that it is almost as difficult to separate them as to bring
forth a Diana or a Minerva2 from a block of virgin marble. Then, as
far as the analysis of the Greeks and the algebra of the moderns is
concerned, besides the fact that they deal with abstractions and ap-
pear to have no utility, the first is always so limited to the consider-
ation of figures that it cannot exercise the understanding without
greatly fatiguing the imagination, and the last is so limited to certain
rules and certain numbers that it has become a confused and obscure
art which perplexes the mind instead of a science which educates it.
In consequence I thought that some other method must be found to
combine the advantages of these three and to escape their faults. Fi-
nally, just as the multitude of laws frequently furnishes an excuse for
vice, and a state is much better governed with a few laws which are
strictly adhered to, so I thought that instead of the great number of
precepts of which logic is composed, I would have enough with the
four following ones, provided that I made a firm and unalterable res-
olution not to violate them even in a single instance.
jjjn The first rule was never to accept anything as true unless I recog-
nized it to be evidently such: that is, carefully to avoid precipitation
and prcjudgment, and to include nothing in my conclusions unless it
presented itself so clearly and distinctly to my mind that there was
no occasion to doubt it/-^
The second was to divide each of the difficulties which I encoun-
tered into as many parts as possible, and as might be required for an
easier solution.
-T^The third was to think in an orderly fashion, beginning with the
things which were simplest and easiest to understand, and gradually
and by degrees reaching toward more complex knowledge, even
treating as though ordered materials which were not necessarily
The last was always to make enumerations so complete, and re-
views so general, that I would be certain that nothing was omitted.
^RThose long chains of reasoning, so simple and easy, which enabled
trie geometricians to reach the most difficult demonstrations, had
/made me wonder whetherj 1 things Jpowabl^ to men might not iaj)
sr iJeMfc

2 Roman goddesses, often the objects of sculpture.

20 Rene Descartes

into^ .similar logical sequence/ If so, we need only refrain from ac-
cepting as true that which is not true, and carefully follow the order
necessary to deduce each one from the others, and there cannot be
any propositions so abstruse that we cannot prove them, or so recon-
dite that we cannot discover them. It was not very difficult, either,
to decide where we should look for a beginning, for I knew already
that one begins with the simplest and easiest to know. Considering
that among all those who have previously sought truth in the sci-
ences, mathematicians alone have been able to find some demon-
strations, some certain and evident reasons, I had no doubt that I
should begin where they did, although I expected no advantage ex-
cept to accustom my mind to work with truths and not to be sat-
isfied with bad reasoning. I do not mean that I intended to learn all
the particular branches of mathematics; for I saw that although the
objects they discuss are different, all these branches are in agreement
in limiting their consideration to the relationships or proportions be-
tween their various objects. I judged therefore that it would be better
to examine these proportions in general, and use particular objects as
illustrations only in order to make their principles easier to compre-
hend, and to be able the more easily to apply them afterwards, with-
out any forcing, to anything for which they would be suitable. I
realized that in order to understand the principles of relationships I
would sometimes have to consider them singly, and sometimes in
groups. I thought I could consider them better singly as relationships
between lines, because I could find nothing more simple or more
easily pictured to my imagination and my senses. But in order to
remember and understand them better when taken in groups, I had
to express them in numbers, and in the smallest numbers possible.
Thus I took the best traits of geometrical analysis and algebra, and
corrected the faults of one by the other.
The exact observation of the few precepts which I had chosen gave
me such facility in clarifying all the issues in these two sciences that it
took only two or three months to examine them. I began with the
most simple and general, and each truth that I found was a rule
which helped me to find others, so that I not only solved many
problems which I had previously judged very difficult, but also it
seemed to me that toward the end I could determine to what extent a
still-unsolved problem could be solved, and what procedures should
be used in solving it. In this I trust that I shall not appear too vain,
considering that there is only one true solution to a given problem,
 Discourse on Method 21

and whoever finds it knows all that anyone can know about it. Thus,
for example, a child who has learned arithmetic and had performed
an addition according to the rules may feel certain that as far as that
particular sum is concerned, he has found everything that a human
mind can discover. For, after all, the method of following the correct
order and stating precisely all the circumstances of what we arc in-
vestigating is the whole of what gives certainty to the rules of arith-
metic.
.YWhat pleased me most about this method was that it enabled me
_to reasonTn ail things, it not perfectly, at least as well as wasjnjny
powcrjftn addition, I felt that in practicing it my mind was gradually
becoming accustomed to conceive its objects more clearly and dis-
tinctly, and since I had not directed this method to any particular
subject matter, I was in hopes of applying it just as usefully to the
difficulties of other sciences as I had already to those of algebra. Not
that I would dare to undertake to examine at once all the difficulties
that presented themselves, for that would have been contrary to the
principle of order. But I had observed that all the basic principles of
the sciences were taken from philosophy, which itself had no certain
ones. It therefore seemed that I should first attempt to establish
philosophic principles, and that since this was the most important
thing in the world and the place where precipitation and prejudg-
ment were most to be feared, I should not attempt to reach conclu-
sions until I had attained a much more mature age than my then
twenty-three years, and had spent much time in preparing for it.
This preparation would consist partly in freeing my mind from the
false opinions which I had previously acquired, partly in building up
a fund of experiences which should serve afterwards as the raw mate-
rial of my reasoning, and partly in training myself in the method
which I had determined upon, so that I should become more and
more adept in its use.

PART FOUR

Proofs of the Existence of God and of the Human Soul

I do not know whether I ought to touch upon my first meditations

here, for they are so metaphysical and out of the ordinary that they
might not be interesting to most people. Nevertheless, in order to
22 Rene Descartes

show whether my fundamental notions are sufficiently sound, I find

myself more or less constrained to speak of them. I had noticed for a
long time that in practice it is sometimes necessary to follow opin-
ions which we know to be very uncertain, just as though they were
indubitable, as I stated before; but inasmuch as I desired to devote
myself wholly to the search for truth, I thought that I should take a
course precisely contrary, and reject as absolutely false anything of
which I could have the least doubt, in order to see whether anything
would be left after this procedure which could be called wholly cer-
tain. Thus, as our senses deceive us at times, I was ready to suppose
that nothing was at all die way our senses represented them to be. As
there are men who make mistakes in reasoning even on the simplest
topics in geometry, I judged that I was as liable to error as any other,
and rejected as false all the reasoning which I had previously accepted
as valid demonstration. Finally, as the same precepts which we have
when awake may come to us when asleep without their being true, I
decided to suppose that nothing that had ever entered my mind was
more real than the illusions of my dreams. But I soon noticed that
while I thus wished to think everything false, it was necessarily true
that I who thought so was something. Since this truth, / think, there-
fore I am, was so firm and assured that all the most extravagant sup-
positions of the sceptics were unable to shake it, I judged that I could
safely accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.
I then examined closely what I was, and saw that I could imagine
that I had no body, and that there was no world nor any place that 1
occupied, but that I could not imagine for a moment that I did not
exist. On the contrary, from the very fact that I doubted the truth of
other things, it followed very evidently and very certainly that I ex-
isted. On the other hand, if I had ceased to think while all the rest of
what I had ever imagined remained true, I would have had no reason
to believe that I existed; therefore I concluded that I was a substance
whose whole essence or nature was only to think, and which, to
exist, has no need of space nor of any material thing. Thus it follows
that this ego, this soul, by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct
from the body and is easier to know than the latter, and that even if
the body were not, the soul would not cease to be all that it now is.
Next I considered in general what is required of a proposition for
it to be true and certain, for since I had just discovered one to be
such, I thought I ought also to know of what that certitude con-
24 Rene Descartes

which I recognize as lacking in me, and so would have been myself

infinite, eternal, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, and, in sum, I
would possess all the perfections that I could discover in God.
For, following the reasoning which I have just explained, to know
the nature of God as far as I was capable of such knowledge, I had
only to consider each quality of which I had an idea, and decide
whether it was or was not a perfection to possess it. I would then be
certain that none of those which had some imperfection was in him,
but that all the others were. I saw that doubt, inconstancy, sorrow
and similar things could not be part of God's nature, since I would
be happy to be without them myself. In addition, I had ideas of
many sensible and corporeal entities, for although I might suppose
that I was dreaming and that all that I saw or imagined was false, I
could not at any rate deny that the ideas were truly in my conscious-
ness. Since I had already recognized very clearly that intelligent na-
ture is distinct from corporeal nature, I considered that composition
is an evidence of dependency and that dependency is manifestly a
defect. From this I judged that it could not be a perfection in God to
be composed of these two natures, and that consequently he was not
so composed. But if there were in the world bodies, or even in-
telligences or other natures that were not wholly perfect, their being
must depend on God's power in such a way that they could not sub-
sist without him for a single moment.
At this point I wished to seek for other truths, and proposed for
consideration the object of the geometricians. This I conceived as a
continuous body, or a space infinitely extended in length, breadth,
and height or depth; divisible into various parts which can have dif-
ferent shapes and sizes and can be moved or transposed in any way:
all of which is presumed by geometricians to be true of their object. I
went through some of their simplest demonstrations and noticed that
the great certainty which everyone attributes to them is only based
on the fact that they are evidently conceived, following the rule
previously established. I noticed also that there was nothing at all in
them to assure me of the existence of their object; it was clear, for
example, that if we posit a triangle, its three angles must be equal to
two right angles, but there was nothing in that to assure me that
there was a single triangle in the world. When I turned back to my
idea of a perfect Being, on the other hand, I discovered that existence
was included in that idea in the same way that the idea of a triangle
contains the equality of its angles to two right angles, or that the idea
 Discourse on Method 25

of a sphere includes the equidistance of all its parts from its center.
Perhaps, in fact, the existence of the perfect Being is even more evi-
dent. Consequently, it is at least as certain that God, who is this per-
fect Being, exists, as any theorem4 of geometry could possibly be.
What makes many people feel that it is difficult to know of the ex-
istence of God, or even of the nature of their own souls, is that they
never consider things higher than corporeal objects. They are so ac-
customed never to think of anything without picturing it—a method
of thinking suitable only for material objects—that everything which
is not picturable seems to them unintelligible. This is also manifest in
the fact that even philosophers hold it as a maxim in the schools that
there is nothing in the understanding which was not first in the
senses, a location where it is clearly evident that the ideas of God and
of the soul have never been. It seems to me that those who wish to
use imagery to understand these matters are doing precisely the same
thing that they would be doing if they tried to use their eyes to hear
sounds or smell odors. There is even this difference: that the sense of
sight gives us no less certainty of the truth of objects than do those of
smell and hearing, while neither our imagery nor our. senses could
assure us of anything without the co-operation of our understanding.
Finally, if there are still some men who arc not sufficiently per-
suaded of the existence of God and of their souls by the reasons
which I have given, I want them to understand that all the other
things of which they might think themselves more certain, such as
their having a body, or the existence of stars and of an earth, and
other such things, are less certain. For even though we have a moral
assurance of these things, such that it seems we cannot doubt them
without extravagance, yet without being unreasonable we cannot
deny that, as far as metaphysical certainty goes, there is sufficient
room for doubt. For we can imagine, when asleep, that we have
another body and see other stars and another earth without there
being any such. How could one know that the thoughts which come
to us in dreams are false rather than the others, since they are often
no less vivid and detailed? Let the best minds study this question as
long as they wish, I do not believe they can find any reason good
enough to remove this doubt unless they presuppose the existence of
God. The very principle which I took as a rule to start with, namely,
that all those things which we conceived very clearly and very dis-

4 A general statement that has been proven.

26 Rene Descartes

tinctly are true, is known to be true only because God exists, and
because he is a perfect Being, and because everything in us comes
from him. From this it follows that our ideas or notions, being real
things which come from God insofar as they are clear and distinct,
cannot to that extent fail to be true. Consequently, though we often
have ideas which contain falsity, they can only be those ideas which
contain some confusion and obscurity, in which respect they partici-
pate in nothingness. That is to say, they are confused in us only
because we are not wholly perfect. It is evident that it is no less re-
pugnant to good sense to assume that falsity or imperfection as such
is derived from God, as that truth or perfection is derived from noth-
ingness. But if we did not know that all reality and truth within us
came from a perfect and infinite Being, however clear and distinct
our ideas might be, we would have no reason to be certain that they
were endowed with the perfection of being true.

PART SIX

Some Prerequisites for Further Advances in the Study of Nature

I noticed that experimentation becomes more necessary in propor-

tion as we advance in knowledge. In beginning an investigation it is
better to restrict ourselves to our usual experiences, which we cannot
ignore if we pay any attention to them at all, than to seek rarer and
more abstruse experiences. The reason for this is that these latter are
often deceiving when the causes of the more common phenomena
arc still unknown, as the circumstances on which they depend arc al-
most always so particular and so minute that it is very difficult to
discover them. My own procedure has been the following: I first
tried to discover the general principles or first causes of all that exists
or could exist in the world, without taking any causes into consider-
ation but God as creator,land without using any eyjdmr*' RTIV TIV-
tain indications of the truth which we find in our own minds_7 After
thaTT examined what were the first and commonest effects which
could be deduced from these causes; and it seems to me that by this
procedure I discovered skies, stars, an earth, and even, on the earth,
water, air, fire, minerals, and several other things which are the
commonest of all and the most simple, and in consequence the easi-
 Discourse on Method 27

est to understand. Then, when I wanted to descend to particulars, it

seemed to me that there were so many different kinds that I believed
it impossible for the human mind to distinguish the forms or species
of objects found on earth from an infinity of others which might
have been there if God had so willed. It thus appeared impossible to
proceed further deductively, and if we were to understand and make
use of things, we would have to discover causes by their effects, and
make use of many experiments. In consequence, reviewing in my
mind all the objects which had ever been presented to my senses, I
believe I can say that I have never noticed anything which I could not
explain easily enough by the principles I had found. But I must also
admit that the powers of nature are so ample and vast, and that these
principles are so simple and so general, that I hardly ever observed a
particular effect without immediately recognizing several ways in
which it could be deduced. My greatest difficulty usually is to find
which of these is the true explanation, and to do this I know no other
way than to seek several experiments such that their outcomes would
be different according to the choice of hypotheses.
For the rest, I have now reached the point, it seems to me, where I
see clearly enough the direction in which we should go in this re-
search; but I also see that the character and the number of experi-
ments required is such that neither my time nor my resources, were
they a thousand times greater than they arc, would suffice to do
them all. In proportion, therefore, to the opportunity I shall have in
the future to do more or fewer of them, I will advance more or less
in the understanding of nature. This I expected to convey in my trea-
tise, and I hoped to show so clearly how useful my project might be
that I would oblige all those who desire human benefit, all those who
are truly virtuous and not merely so in affectation or reputation,
both to communicate to me the experiments that they have already
made and to assist me in the prosecution of what remained to be
done.